The Doubts and Loves of Yehuda Amichai
Israeli, European, and International Poet
The Doubts and Loves of Yehuda Amichai: Israeli, European, and International Poet presents the life and works of Yehuda Amichai, born Ludwig Pfeuffer in Würzburg, Germany. The book is based on copious material from Amichai's personal archive in the Beinecke Library at Yale University, other archives and numerous interviews with family members and others who knew him well. Each phase of the biography is linked to its overarching historical context and provides a literary analysis of the key features of his writing. What emerges is a multifaceted picture of a crucial period in the 20th century in which Amichai was both a witness and an actor, without ever taking a simplistic, direct position in his poetry.
Amichai, an engaged political poet, was an enlightened, humanitarian European while remaining an authentic Israeli who loved his country and was deeply involved finding solutions to its problems. Amichai was also a great admirer of women. The analysis of his tempestuous love life helps shed light on important aspects of his prose and poetry. Several chapters are also devoted to the background and influence of Amichai's works in genres other than poetry including his two novels and a collection of short stories, his radio plays, and his children's poetry.
https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780761874607
12.9.24
Ada Taggar Cohen and Doron B. Cohen (eds.), Garden, Orchard and Nature in Jewish and Japanese Culture, Literature and Religion - The 12th CISMOR Conference on Jewish Studies: An Annual conference held on September 30- October 1, 2023 in Kyoto, Doshisha University, (Published by CISMOR=The Center for Interdisciplinary Study of the Monotheistic Religions, Doshisha University; Kyoto, 2024).
Last year we organized a conference at Doshisha University, CISMOR in collaboration with Ben-Gurion University HEKSHERIM, of which we have reported on the last HHE 26: (http://naphhebrew.org/hhe-26-2024).
Most of the papers have been now published as a volume and are posted on the website of the Center for Interdisciplinary Study for Monotheistic Religions (=CISMOR).
The link is here: ユダヤ学会議 | シリーズ | 同志社大学 一神教学際研究センター CISMOR
11.29.24
Tracing The Ritual Body: Catherine Bell and Rituals of the Ancient Biblical World
Edited by Ada Taggar Cohen, Richard E. DeMaris, Jonathan Schwiebert
(LHBOTS [=Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 741] T&T Clark, Bloomsbury, 2024)
This volume utilizes Catherine Bell's ritual theory to shed new light on the many rituals reflected in ancient Mediterranean texts. In recent decades scholars of religion have come to realize that ritual and bodily practices are just as important for religion as beliefs and doctrine. With the development of ritual studies in the 1990s there arose a critical framework for investigating ritual and practice. Only recently, however, has Bell's theorizing been employed to study the rituals portrayed in ancient texts. This cross-disciplinary examination assesses the utility of Bell's theorizing for studying the textual evidence for rituals of the ancient Near East, the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament, and other early Christian literature.
The contributors to this volume illustrate a path away from regarding rituals as inert and fixed and toward a more complex and vibrant interactive model of ritual behaviour. In this volume, as each scholar works to recover the traces of long-past rituals in a particular set of materials, these and other concepts are consciously employed to guide or challenge the investigation, pushing beyond previous conclusions about ancient rituals. The contributors' attention to theory, and especially the social context, practical function, and symbolic interpretation, set this collection apart from studies that consider the rituals in more traditional textual ways.
Contributors: Ada Taggar Cohen (Doshisha University); Roy E. Gane (Andrews University); Dan Belnap (Brigham Young University); Hannah K. Harrington (Patten University); Richard E. DeMaris (Valparaiso University); Jonathan Schwiebert (Lenoir-Rhyne University); Jade Weimer (University of Manitoba); Ritva H. Williams (St. Stephen's Lutheran Church, Cedar Rapids); Russell C. D. Arnold (Regis University)
For Table of Contents and purchase see:
https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/tracing-the-ritual-body-9780567710567/
(Many libraries are subscribed to the series, please check your library)
11.29.24
Upgrades to Hinneh – Biblical Hebrew the Practical Way E-Book
NEW Hinneh E-Tool Box in COLOR
By Rahel Halabe (Jerusalem, The Hebrew University Magnes Press)
Color coding has been one of Hinneh’s essential methods of effectively imparting the complex Biblical Hebrew verb system. This method is a very useful tool for both instructors and students, helping them to teach and learn Hebrew verbs (stem, form, root group), and enables students to read verbs in context and soundly interpret them. Throughout Hinneh, volumes I and II (the paperback edition or e-book), and as they progress through the program, instructors are advised to present the verb stem paradigms, printed on sheets of different colors, while the students manually highlight verbs in the different root groups in the fully conjugated lists of frequently occurring verbs, following an assigned color scheme. Students have found this color coding method highly successful when internalizing the complexity of the material.
We are happy to announce that the Hinneh e-Book edition has now been updated to include the NEW e-Tool Box, which integrates the color coded verb tools. For examples, please click on the following links to see samples of a stem paradigm and of a frequently occurring verb list. Color is also used in the new e-Tool Box to distinguish between the singular and the plural in the noun list, as well as between the singular-like and the plural-like in the preposition list. Moreover, from now on, this NEW color e-Tool Box may be purchased as a separate product!
Teachers and students already following the Hinneh program, using the paperback or electronic editions will be able to enhance their teaching/learning experience with the new, multicolored, visual e-Tools projected on their classroom screen or on their own personal computer.
Teachers and students not subscribed to the Hinneh program also have a chance to benefit from this solid, rich resource (please click to see Table of Contents). The color e-Tool Box can surely support, and significantly enhance any introductory Biblical Hebrew program used. Others depending on Hinneh as a reliable reference for review and consultation (Hebrew Bible teachers, Modern Hebrew teachers in elementary schools and high schools, library patrons, rabbis, clerics or laypeople in their congregations), would surely appreciate the detailed and accessible grammatical picture painted by the new Hinneh color e-Tool Box. The new color edition of the electronic Tool Box can be purchased either as part of the full Hinneh e-Book separately as the Hinneh e-Tool Box.
For more on presentation of the verb system in Hinneh program, please see Realistic and Effective Practice and Assessment System for the Biblical Hebrew Introductory Course (scroll down to pages139-143) and Presentation of the Hebrew Verb System in the Classroom.